#72 Immigration

Why does everyone get nervous when they go through Customs and Immigration at a border crossing?  I’ll tell you why.  It’s because their system is so damn random.  You could be the most upstanding citizen in the world and that’s not going to protect you from being treated like a potential terrorist.  The immigration officers at Mirabel and I got to know each other pretty well.  Mirabel (which is probably one of the ugliest airports ever constructed) was Montreal’s international airport.  I had a work visa that was facilitated by the Montreal company I worked for.  Because the company was constantly touring internationally, I was leaving and reentering Canada a lot – and my reentry usually came through Mirabel.  EVERY TIME and I do mean EVERY SINGLE TIME we arrived at Mirabel, I would wait in one of the long immigration lines (which makes me wonder why they never put more officers on duty when several flights arrive at the same time), and when I would finally reach the immigration officer, he would take one look at my papers and send me to the detainment center where I would have to sit for half an hour while they poured over my papers.  EVERY SINGLE TIME.  One day, I finally had had enough.  We arrived at Mirabel and rather than heading for the inevitable endless lineup, I walked past them all and started towards the detainment center.  A guard stopped me and told me “You can’t go this way, Miss.”  I looked at him.  “Look,” I said, “You know and I know that I am just going to end up over there anyway.  I just thought I’d save us a little time this time.”  He looked at me.  He called over another officer and they had a discussion that I couldn’t hear.  I was sent back to the lineup to wait my turn – but I never got sent to the detainment center again.

The dance company was traveling back to Canada from the USA.  We made our entry in Winnipeg.  As all of us cleared Immigration and Customs, we noticed that we were missing half of the company.  On closer inspection, we realized that we were missing only the French-speaking members of the company.  We sat and waited outside of the customs doors.  Twenty minutes later and we still hadn’t seen any of our missing dancers.  The doors opened and one of the immigration officers came out.  I stopped him.  “Excuse me sir, could you tell me why only our French speaking dancers are being detained?”  He looked at us and then walked back into the customs room.  Our dancers soon started to emerge.  You know that sign at Canadian Immigration that gives you the option of which official language (French or English) you would like to communicate in?  Well it appears that on that particular day (and who knows if this was the practice at the time in Winnipeg) that anyone who asked for the French service was detained.

Sometimes we would return to Canada via the USA.  Marianne was missing for forty-five minutes during one passage through a New York City airport.  When she finally rejoined us – she was clearly upset.  She had been subjected to a total body search.  It wasn’t just the body search that upset her, it was also the fact that she didn’t understand enough English to answer the questions that the immigration and customs officers were barking at her.  Imagine not speaking the language and then getting hauled off to a room where your clothes are being removed.  Understandably frightening.  Now -Marianne did speak some English BUT her English language skills were at a rudimentary level – fine for carrying on simple conversations but not good enough when it came to understanding difficult words,  accents or slang.  With rudimentary language skills in a difficult situation, you’re pretty much as clueless as someone who doesn’t speak the language at all.  My French-Canadian husband Jacques did speak English, but he never understood a word spoken to him while we were in Ireland.  Their accents didn’t make any sounds that he recognized.  The same thing for me.  Although my French could get me through Europe and Africa- to this day – I have never understood a word my mother-in-law has said to me.  She speaks with a heavy Quebecois accent and uses a lot of slang.  She might as well be speaking Swahili for all I understand.  Anyway – after the Marianne incident, we came up with a game plan for going through USA Customs.  Each American citizen in the company would pair up with one of non-English speaking French dancers and help them through the procedure.  The next time while entering NYC, I paired up with Marianne.  I went through first.  No problem.  The officer told me I could leave.  He turned to Marianne and then noticed me still standing there.  He repeated, “You can go.”  I explained that I was staying to help Marianne because she didn’t understand the language.  “I’m sorry Miss, but you can’t stay.”  “But she doesn’t understand what you’re saying.” I replied.  “Miss, you are going to have to move now.”  There are moments when being brought up in a culture that celebrates the cowboy bully mentality of George Bush is a definite bonus.  I glared at this guy and my voice started to rise over the din.  “You can’t tell me what to do.  I’m an American and I know my rights and I am going to stay right here until this girl is finished.”  I still can’t believe he backed down.  Sometimes you just have to bulldog your way through a situation and hope for the best.

The first time we arrived in Argentina the military dictatorship was still in power, the Falklands War had just finished and we had been told by the company director to not stop in front of government buildings.  “Why?” I asked.  “Because they shoot first and find out who they killed later.”  I just stared at him.  “Look,” he said, “If you see a cop or a soldier, just turn around and go the other way.”  Needless to say, the atmosphere as we arrived in Buenos Aires was tense.  We ran into problems immediately at the airport.  The young blond and extremely handsome immigration official was not about to let us enter the country.  I still don’t know what the problem was.  Maybe it was the fact that we were a Canadian company and Canada was part of the British Empire.  All I did know is that we were not going anywhere.  While the company manager and the immigration officer argued, I looked around.  There were two queues of people going through immigration.  We were all standing together in one line (because it was generally easier to deal with official matters en masse) and the line next to us was practically empty.  Once the final passenger went through, the other immigration officer started to wave us over.   Apparently he had no problem with letting us enter.  One by one we moved over to the other line and crossed.  I don’t think the blond officer was aware of the fact that we were part of this group he was blocking.  When he finally caught on as to what was happening, a fight ensued between the two officials.  As their shouting match escalated, other officials arrived.  Eventually everyone was allowed to pass.